He said he
had told his sister, Roof's mother, several years ago that Roof was too
introverted and worried he was cooped up in his room too much.
'I
said he was like 19 years old, he still didn't have a job, a driver's
license or anything like that and he just stayed in his room a lot of
the time,' Cowles said.
A
high school classmate of Roof's, John Mullins, told The Daily Beast
that the accused white supremacist killer was 'kind of wild' and a big
time prescription drug abuser.
'He
used drugs heavily a lot,' Mullins said. 'It obviously harder than
marijuana. He was like a pill popper, from what I understood. Like
Xanax, and stuff like that.'
Court
records reveal that a February drug charge cited Roof's possession of
methamphetamine, cocaine and LSD, RadarOnline reports.
The
February arrest was prompted when employees at the Columbiana Centre
mall told authorities Roof was 'out-of-the-ordinary questions' that made
them uneasy, the New York Times reports.
In
a photograph of Roof on Facebook, he is seen glaring at the camera
while displaying the flag of apartheid-era South Africa on his jacket.
He is also wearing another flag depicting that of white-rule Rhodesia,
now called Zimbabwe.
Roof
attended ninth grade at White Knoll High during the 2008-09 school year
and went there for the first half of the following academic year,
district spokeswoman Mary Beth Hill said. The school system gave no
reason for Roof's departure and said it had no record of him attending
any other schools in the district.
According to CBS News, school records show that between fourth and ninth grade, Roof attended six different schools, and repeated the ninth grade.
Court records show he was charged with a drugs offense in March 2015 and trespassing in April.
Of
the shooting, Charleston Police Chief Gregory Mullen said: 'We believe
this is a hate crime - that is how we are investigating it.'
On Thursday,
the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, the FBI and the U.S.
Attorney's Office have launched a hate crime investigation into the
mass shooting, ABC reported. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms
and Explosives and other agencies have joined the investigation, Mullen
said.
The
killer is believed to have entered the church around 8pm before taking
part in the prayer group for about an hour, police said.
Although
it is a black church, it would not be surprising to see a white person -
or a person of any other race - attending a gathering there,
Charleston's NAACP President Dot Scott told CNN on Thursday.
Speaking
in the NBC interview, Pinckney's cousin said Roof had specifically
asked for the reverend before sitting beside him throughout the meeting.
The Reverend Norvel Goff, a presiding elder for the African Methodist Episcopal Church, told the Washington Post that
the suspect 'walked in, from my understanding, not so much as a
participant, but as a brief observer who then stood up and then started
shooting'.
Police received the first call about the shooting shortly after 9pm.
Emergency
responders found eight people dead inside the church, and one was taken
to hospital where they later died, Mullen said on Thursday. Among the
dead was Reverend and State Senator Pinckney. On Thursday, photos showed
a black cloth placed over Pinckney's seat in the South Carolina Senate.
The eight other victims, aged between 26 and 87, were named by the coroner on Thursday.
They
were identified as Tywanza Sanders, 26, Sharonda Singleton, 45, DePayne
Middleton, 49, Cynthia Hurd, 54, Myra Thompson, 59, Ethel Lee Lance,
70, Daniel Simmons, 76, and Susie Jackson, 87.
Police said that three survivors were also found inside the church.
Dot Scott of the NAACP told the Post and Courier that
a female survivor told her family members that the gunman said she
could escape. He said he was letting her live so she could tell the
world what happened.
Meanwhile,
family members who were being briefed by chaplains after the shooting
reportedly said that a five-year-old girl survived the attack after she
was told to play dead by her grandmother.
'The
tragedy that we're addressing right now is indescribable,' Mullen said
on Thursday morning. 'No one in this community will ever forget this
night.
'We are committed to do whatever is necessary to bring this individual to justice. We are not leaving any stone unturned.'
Charleston
Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr added: 'This is an unfathomable and
unspeakable act by somebody filled with hate and with a deranged mind.
'We're going to put our arms around this church... We're going to find this horrible scoundrel.'
And speaking from the White House on Thursday afternoon, President Obama called the murders 'senseless'.
'Any
death of this sort is a tragedy, any shooting involving multiple
victims is a tragedy,' he said. 'There is something particularly
heartbreaking about death happening somewhere we seek solace and we seek
peace.
'Methodist
Emanuel is in fact more than a church, this is a place of worship that
was founded by African Americans seeking liberty. This is a sacred place
in the history of Charleston and in the history of America.'
He went on: 'The fact that this took place in a black church also raises questions about a dark part of our history.'
He also spoke out about how the incident again signals the need for stricter gun control.
No comments:
Post a Comment